Whittier Mayor Pro Tem Josué Alvarado, right center, celebrates the reopening of the Palm Park Aquatic Center with a jump-in ceremony on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

The city didn’t have the full $700,000 needed to repair a cracked deck that was considered dangerous.

Whittier Mayor Pro Tem Josué Alvarado, right center, celebrates the reopening of the Palm Park Aquatic Center with a “jump-in” ceremony on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

County Supervisor Janice Hahn, center, cuts the ribbon with Council member Cathy Warner, left center, and Mayor Pro Tem Josué Alvarado, right center, and city staff and chilren as they celebrate the reopening of the Palm Park Aquatic Center with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Whittier City Council members (center) and County Supervisor Janice Hahn, left, celebrate the reopening of the Palm Park Aquatic Center with a “jump-in” ceremony on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

County Supervisor Janice Hahn, left, and Whittier Council member Cathy Warner before the Palm Park Aquatic Center “jump-in” ceremony on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

County Supervisor Janice Hahn, center, cuts the ribbon with Council member Cathy Warner, left center, and Mayor Pro Tem Josué Alvarado, right center, celebrate the reopening of the Palm Park Aquatic Center on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

Whittier Mayor Pro Tem Josué Alvarado, right center, celebrates the reopening of the Palm Park Aquatic Center with a jump-in ceremony on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, center, with Whittier Mayor Pro Tem Josué Alvarado, right, speaks during the reopening of the Palm Park Aquatic Center with a ribbon cutting and “jump-in” ceremony on Tuesday May 9, 2018. The pool has been closed since February for a $700,000 city refurbishing project on the deck and re-plaster the pool. (Photo by Keith Durflinger for SCNG)

But when Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn came up with the $300,000 the city needed, the work was done and about 65 youngsters — and Whittier City Council members Josue Alvarado, Henry Bouchot and Cathy Warner — jumped into the new pool at its grand reopening on Wednesday.

“We really did have a bit of a crisis,” Alvarado said. “There was a likelihood that this pool would not have been open this summer.”

“Every community needs a public pool,” she said. “It’s a safe place for children to hang out in the summer. A lot of kids wouldn’t learn to swim if it were not for public pools.”

Children who came to swim Wednesday said they were happy. With the pool closed since February, they had been waiting a long time.

“It’s exciting,” 12-year-old Oscar Cruz of Whittier said. “I go here a lot. I’ve been wanting to get in the pool since (it closed).”

The work included redoing the deck, replastering of the pool and adding a new diving board and starting blocks.

The work was needed, David Schickling, Whittier public works director, said in a February interview. The deck was cracked and “humped up,” he said. “We don’t have any incidents of tripping, but it was moving toward that direction.”

These were first repairs to the pool’s deck since opening in 1990. The pool was last re-plastered in 2002. Schickling said this kind of work should actually be done every eight to 10 years.

Mike Sprague started at the Whittier Daily News in April 1984. Since then, Sprague has covered every city in the Whittier Daily News circulation area, as well as political and water issues. Sprague received a bachelor's degree in communications and a master's degree in political science, both from Cal State Fullerton.